Gaming Stuff

April 17, 2013

Whodunit in Boston

Perhaps the most disturbing development in the Boston Marathon bombing is that it was anonymous. No one has taken credit for it.

This is highly unusual, and the resulting information vacuum is being filled with every kind of speculation.

My esteemed co-blogger is correct in that radical Islam has had very bloody hands for the past 20 years. Before that it was usually Marxists and their affiliates who cornered the market on bombings.

The problem is that we still have no idea why this happened. What we do know is that whoever turns out to be responsible will be quickly forced into the left-right bipolar struggle for dominance.

While I think he went too far, T-Mo is right to note that for all the left's fevered dreams and speculation, most bombers tend to share their core beliefs.

I also disagree with his take on the president's reaction. I think the president should have said nothing - certainly his lengthy remarks added no new information and served no other purpose than to remind us that he cares - as if that needed to be pointed out. It was filler, and I for one am amused at how this modern urge to get the president's views on everything from individual murders to basketball games comes back to bite the White House when they are asked to comment on something they'd rather not discuss.

Given that Robert Redford has now produced a movie about "retired" Weather Underground-type terrorists, I'd love it if a reporter will ask him if he'd be willing to finance a similar rehabilation effort 20-30 years down the road for whoever killed and maimed the innocent people in Boston. I know, Redford is old - maybe he can put the money into escrow.

As much as commenter Childe Roland may resent it, the fact of the matter is that in this time and place, all crime is a political issue.

I'd much prefer a focus on helping victims and noting that the price of a free society is that a tiny minority people will abuse that freedom. Yet the solution cannot be to eliminate freedom.

The revelation that one (at least) of the bombs was built from a pressure cooker should give us all pause. Even if guns vanished tomorrow, those bent on harm would still have the means to do great harm.

The lesson is that banning this or that item will not make us safer. The weapon here was a cook pot and some loose metal.

No, the key takeaway is to look after one another as individuals. If the flawed human condition is the source of our suffering, it is also the greatest hope for our succour.

A great evil visited Boston, but a great kindness came in its aftermath. Ultimately there is no solution for the problem of man's inhumanity to man, but the best we can do is reach out to one another as individuals.

I am sure that the coming days will see much political sport, and proposals to prevent this will cover the ideological spectrum. Based on precedent, I can fearlessly predict that the government will request more power, more money, and a greater ability than ever before to watch what everyone is doing. It will also want to limit our access to things that might do harm.

But creating a federal Department of Never Letting Bad Things Happen will fail, as such efforts always do. Bad things will happen, and all we can do is offer prayers and help to turn an act of evil into an occasion of kindness.